Friday, November 09, 2007

McClatchy takes big loss


NEW YORK, Nov 8 (Reuters) - McClatchy Co said on Thursday it swung to a third-quarter loss after taking a $1.37 billion writedown caused by a poor advertising climate and a reduction in the value of the acquisition of Knight Ridder Inc.

The U.S. newspaper publisher's net loss was $1.35 billion, or $16.42 per share, compared to a year-earlier net profit of $51.8 million, or 64 cents per share.

Last month, McClatchy reported a preliminary profit from continuing operations of $23.5 million, or 29 cents a share. Those results are not changing, the company said.

"As I said last month when we released our preliminary earnings, we recognize that newspaper revenues have declined industry-wide and that values have dropped," Chief Executive Gary Pruitt said in a news release.

"We do not know when this downturn will end, and do not have visibility beyond the fourth quarter," he added. "Nonetheless, we believe that cyclical factors represent a significant portion of the current advertising downturn as evidenced by our operations in the California and Florida regions."

The write-down, equivalent to $16.68 per share, included a $1.18 billion goodwill impairment charge, of which about a third was because of the accounting treatment of common stock it issued when it bought Knight Ridder and its newspapers in 2006.

Click on the headline to read the full Reuters story.

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